Official Number: 121333
Laid down:
Builder: Wm. Denny & Bros, Dumbarton
Launched: 10 March 1906
Pennant No:
Into Service: 15 February 1915
Out of service: 1919
Fate: 1970 Broken up
Items of historic interest involving this ship: –
Background Data: One of an additional group of ships requisitioned by the Admiralty during WW1 & WW2 to augment the ships of the RFA
Career Data:
1906 ordered as MARCHIONESS OF GRAHAM
1 March 1906 the Lloyds List newspaper reported …
10 March 1906 launched by Wm. Denny & Bros., Dumbarton as Yard No: 770 but unnamed for the Caledonian Steam Packet Co, Ltd., Glasgow
May 1906 before trials she was named DUCHESS OF ARGYLL
9 May 1906 completed and could carry 1512 passengers on her owners’s Ardrossan to Arran route
15 February 1915 requisitioned for Admiralty service as a cross-Channel troopship. In just over four years made 655 trips, steamed 75,921 miles and carried 326,608 personnel
27 April 1919 arrived Greenock for reconversion for commercial service
29 September 1919 at Prince’s Pier, Greenock Railway Clerk David Johnstone discharged dead from a heart attack
1 July 1923 owners became London, Midland & Scottish Railway Co – name unchanged
20 July 1939 onboard at Campbeltown, Argyll Passenger Harold James McNab discharged dead from natural causes – heart attack
1940 to 1945 remained on the Clyde service but was used by the MoWT as a Troopship Tender when required
12 May 1946 at Kilchattan Bay Fireman John Keogh, Fireman James Kelly and Fireman John Calder each discharged dead by drowning
September 1951 withdrawn from service and laid up at Albert Harbour, Greenock
February 1952 purchased by the Admiralty and was converted into a floating laboratory at Chatham Dockyard, based at Portland for the Admiralty Underwater Experimental Establishment
28 October 1969 sold for scrap
27 January 1970 was towed to Newhaven where she was beached and broken up